28 DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERS OF ANIMALS. 
for the scientific naturalist to mistake a Protophyte (or one 
of the simplest forms of vegetation) for an Animalcule, and 
although Zoophytes are continually ranked in the popular mind 
with the Plants they so much resemble in form, no one is in 
any danger of confounding the Oak and the Elephant, the Palm 
and the Whale. Eor among the higher Animals, not only the 
principal organs, hut the greater part of their elementary 
parts or tissues, are formed upon a plan entirely different 
from that which prevails in Plants. All the arrangements 
of their organism or corporeal edifice are made for the pur¬ 
pose of enabling them to perform, in the most advantageous 
manner possible, those peculiar functions with which they have 
been endowed,—to receive sensations,—to feel, think, and 
will,—and to move in accordance with the directions of the 
instinct or the judgment. Eor these purposes we find a 
peculiar apparatus, termed the Nervous system, adapted. .This 
apparatus consists of a vast number of fibres, spread out over 
the surface of the body, and especially collected in certain 
parts, called Organs of Sense (such as the eye, nose, ear, 
tongue, lips, and points of the fingers). These have the 
peculiar property of receiving impressions which are made 
upon their extremities, and of conveying them to the central 
masses of nervous matter (known in the higher animals as 
the Brain and Spinal Cord ), by the instrumentality of which 
they are communicated to the mind. 
10. From the .Nervous centres, other cords proceed to the 
various Muscles , by which the body is moved. These muscles, 
commonly known as “ flesh,” are composed of a tissue which 
has the power of contracting suddenly and forcibly, when 
peculiar stimuli are applied to it. In this respect, it bears a 
resemblance to the contractile tissues by which the move¬ 
ments of plants are produced (Veget. Phys. § 390); but it 
differs from them in being thrown into action, not only by 
stimuli that are applied directly to itself, but by an influence 
conveyed through the nervous system. Thus, in an annual 
recently dead, we may excite any muscles to contraction, by 
sending a current of electricity into the nerves supplying 
them; and in a living animal we may do the same by simply 
touching those nerves. But the stimulus which these nerves 
ordinarily convey, originates in an act of the mind , which is 
connected in some mysterious and inscrutable manner with 
